The Awareness Center closed. We operated from April 30, 1999 - April 30, 2014. This site is being provided for educational & historical purposes.
We were the international Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault (JCASA); and were dedicated to ending sexual violence in Jewish communities globally. We did our best to operate as the make a wish foundation for Jewish survivors of sex crimes. In the past we offered a clearinghouse of information, resources, support and advocacy.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Case of Cantor Michael Segelstein

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you,
then they fight you, then you win."

-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

Originally arraigned on one count each of attempted
sexual assault, battery with intent to commit sexual assault and open and
gross lewdness. He pled guilty as part of a plea agreement to open or gross
lewdness, received one year suspended sentence with conditions and court
ordered into counseling and was discharged from probation on December 2,
2005. He still faces a civil trial. Last I checked pre-trial was scheduled
for April 24, 2006 at 09:30 AM and trial was set for May 1, 2006 at 09:30
AM.

Michael Alan Segelstein is currently on both the
Flordia and National Sex Offender registries.

November 7, 2008

CALL TO ACTION:
Should a
convicted sex offender who's on the national sex offender registry be allowed
on Purim to be drunk and performing in front of children? I guess the Chabad
of Southern Nevada thinks it's ok.

Cantor Michael Segelstein is the one on the right wearing
a black suit.

Michael Alan Segelstein is currently on both the Flordia
and National Sex Offender registries.

Segelstein was originally arraigned on one count each
of attempted sexual assault, battery with intent to commit sexual assault
and open and gross lewdness. He pled guilty as part of a plea agreement to
open or gross lewdness, received one year suspended sentence with conditions
and court ordered into counseling and was discharged from probation on December
2, 2005.

It appears that Michael Segelstein is an honored member
of Chabad of Southern Nevada. Please contact Rabbi Shea Harlig and let your
voice be heard!

Rabbi Shea Harlig, Director

Email: chabadlv@aol.com

1261 S. Arville Street, Las Vegas, Nevada
89102

Disclaimer: Inclusion in this website does not constitute a recommendation
or endorsement. Individuals must decide for themselves if the resources meet
their own personal needs.

Table of Contents:

2000

Orthodox in an Unorthodox Place:Jews
settling in this not exactly holy land have made Las Vegas the nation's
fastest-growing Jewish community
(08/2000)

2002

Temple member faces sex
charges (07/25/2002)

2005

Cantor Michael Segelstein is on the
Florida and National Sex Offender Registries
(12/15/2005)

Chabad Motto? If At First You Don't
Succeed, Sue the Victim (06/21/2007)

CALL TO ACTION:
Should a convicted sex offender who's
on the national sex offender registry be allowed on Purim to be drunk and
performing in front of children? I guess the Chabad of Southern Nevada thinks
it's ok.
(11/07/2007)

Jews settling in this not exactly holy land
have made Las Vegas the nation's fastest-growing Jewish
community

By Stephen J. Dubner, Photography by Ellen Dubner

Las Vegas Life - August 2000

http://www.lvlife.com/2000/08/features/story01.html

Chazzen Michael Segelstein, reading the
megelliah back in 2000.One year later Segelstein
commits a sex crime.

At Rabbi Shea Harlig's Chabad center, men from the
Lubavitch congregation prepare to read the Purim story.

Besides being a pair of Brooklyn Jews, Bugsy Siegel
and Shea Harlig wouldn't seem to have much in common. Siegel's formative
years were spent breaking skulls, running numbers, raping and bootlegging;
the teenage Harlig studied in a yeshiva. Siegel became a world-class thug,
his charm matched only by his ambition; Harlig became an Orthodox rabbi.
And yet, when the two men first laid eyes upon Las Vegas, decades apart,
they were seized by the same dream. They did not see, as others saw, a forbidding
desert. They saw a shimmering expanse of boundless opportunity, a veritable
land of milk and honey.

Siegel's dream ended badly, with gunfire. Shea Harlig's
dream, of establishing a foothold for Orthodox Jewry in a most unorthodox
setting, has so far played out according to plan.

"When I moved here, in December 1990, I was the only
yarmulke-wearing Jew in town," he says. That would seem like lousy odds--one
of about 30,000--but it's just what he wanted. He was 25 years old, freshly
married and jobless. He had considered posts in Ohio, in California, even
Copenhagen. None of them appealed. "You're looking for a place where you
can make things happen," he explains, an excited smile flashing beneath his
shaggy beard. "I always wanted to go where there were no Orthodox Jews. I
was looking to get away, to start my own show."

Rabbi Dovid Lieb Myhill celebrates Purim by dancing
with his son on his shoulders.

His show has started and then some. As the overall
population of Las Vegas has exploded, so has the Jewish population, to about
70,000, the fastest-growing Jewish community in North America. Which has
led to a full-throttle boom: a rash of new synagogues (nearly 20 congregations,
up from a handful a decade ago), outreach programs, kosher restaurants and
grocery sections; two Jewish Community Centers are also in the works. Rabbi
Harlig is hardly responsible for all of it, but more roads than not lead
to him. "This is a midbar [desert], and I mean that spiritually, intellectually
and in other ways," says Rabbi Louis Lederman, the retired spiritual leader
of the Temple Beth Sholom, a Conservative synagogue that is the city's oldest.
"He has taken a midbar and brought so much to this community. No offense
to the Conservative or Reform rabbis, but he's the only one who has really
lifted the Jewish level of this community."

Rabbi Harlig belongs to the Lubavitcher movement, a
Hasidic group of legendary zeal also known as Chabad. Its aim: to bring every
single Jew, no matter how secular, back into the fold. It is Chabad that
sends motor homes into the streets of Manhattan, blaring Hasidic music and
trolling for curious Jews. It is Chabad that holds Passover Seders in Siberia
and Katmandu and Kazakhstan. For decades, the movement was led by the late
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, whom many Lubavitchers believed was Moshiach,
the messiah. To spread his message, Rabbi Schneerson sent Chabad
"emissaries"--usually young married couples--to any city that had even a
small Jewish population. "I have found two things in every city I have ever
visited," a noted Israeli rabbi once remarked. "Coca-Cola and Lubavitcher
Hasidim."

Wearing a baseball cap in lieu of a yarmulke, Mayor
Oscar Goodman opens a Purim gift, accompanied by three of Rabbi Harlig's
children in Purim costumes.

Every city, apparently, except Las Vegas. Rabbi Schneerson
had repeatedly vetoed a Las Vegas emissary. The city's secondary vices aside,
gambling is plainly anathema to Jewish law: The Talmud states that "one who
plays with dice" is unfit to bear witness. And while the city has had plenty
of prominent Jewish citizens--Siegel and Moe Dalitz and Lefty Rosenthal among
them--they seemed unlikely candidates for Chabad ministry.

On the other hand, Rabbi Harlig never had a shot at
them. His missionary zeal is matched only by his entrepreneurial zeal; there
are few doors that he hasn't managed to stick at least one foot inside.

Today, for instance, Mayor Oscar Goodman is awaiting
his visit. It is Purim, the holiday marking the defeat of Haman, a wicked
Persian who tried to exterminate the Jews. On Purim, it is customary for
Jews to wear costumes, bestow gifts, donate to charity and get drunk.

Rabbi Harlig, because he is driving a carload of children
to the mayor's office, five of them his own, has presumably refrained from
this last custom. Nevertheless, he is running late, and the mayor isn't pleased.
When the rabbi finally arrives, the mayor tells a secretary to keep him waiting.
"Let the kids drive him nuts for about five minutes," he says. "Get back
at him."

Students at the Chabad center's Desert Torah Hebrew
Day School work together on a puzzle.

Shortly, Rabbi Harlig strides inside, the flock of
children in his wake. "No no no, who let you in?" asks the mayor.

"Be nice," says the rabbi.

"No, I'm not going to be nice. I'll be nice to the
children but not to you."

Unlike many Chabad donors--that is, Jews who don't
know much Judaism but want to keep it alive--Mayor Goodman has strong enough
religious credentials to not be cowed into piety. He has belonged to Temple
Beth Sholom since he moved to Las Vegas in 1964, later serving as its president.
Still, on Election Day last year, with Goodman's name on the ballot, it was
Rabbi Harlig's synagogue where he went to pray.

"That was the last time I saw you in shul," says the
rabbi.

"Because I go to another shul, because of the wickedness
of you, Haman."

Rabbi Myhill prepares to label the kosher chicken packaged
by the butcher in an Albertson's store in west Las Vegas.

Most mayors, it should be pointed out, would not call
a rabbi "Haman." Most mayors did not make their living defending Tony "The
Ant" Spilotro, either.

"Come on, a little yarmulke--you've got to wear something,"
the rabbi is saying. He wants to recite a Purim blessing but the mayor's
head is uncovered.

"Troublemaker," growls the mayor.

It should also be pointed out that Rabbi Harlig gives
as good as he gets. "If not for me," he tells the mayor, "you never would
have won. Remember the first one in the Jewish community who was there for
your announcement? You were able to get three homeless people to show up,
and me."

The rabbi hands the mayor some Purim literature and
the mayor throws it in the garbage. The children help the mayor unwrap the
gifts they've brought him: box upon box of chocolates and hamantashen, a
Purim pastry. The mayor seems flustered at the bounty. He offers it around:
"As Tony Spilotro said, children, you can only eat one steak at a time."

With the niceties, such as they are, concluded, the
mayor scrounges for his checkbook. "It makes me sick," he says, with only
half a grin. "I mean, he gives you two dollars' worth of hamantashen and
wants a check for ..."--he looks up at the rabbi--"how much, $900?"

The rabbi nods. The mayor scribbles. The children eat
hamantashen. From the other side of life, neither Bugsy Siegel nor Rabbi
Schneerson can quite believe what they are witnessing.

The religious school at Ner Tamid, the city's oldest
Reform synagogue, bears the name of the building's chief benefactor: Moe
Dalitz.

This might strike some as incongruous--as if, say,
a Justice Department library were dedicated to Al Capone--but Jewish life
in Las Vegas has been one long incongruity. Moe Sedway, a Flamingo boss and
former Siegel henchman, was the chief fund-raiser for the Nevada United Jewish
Appeal. (Like Dalitz, he understood that nothing touched up a former gangster's
reputation like charity.) Jack Entratter, who ran the Sands and served as
president of Temple Beth Sholom, once showed up for services toting a revolver.
When Rabbi Harlig first came to town, he conducted High Holy Day services
at the Aladdin. "Here I was, a full-dressed Orthodox Jew walking through
a casino for Kol Nidre," he recalls. "I felt so unkosher."

And then there was the time that Temple Beth Sholom,
packed beyond capacity for the High Holy Days, held overflow services in
a church across the street. The crucifix was dutifully covered with a white
cloth. But when the air conditioning vents began blasting, up blew the cloth
and there hung Jesus for all to see.

The wives of local business leaders chat during a
fund-raiser for the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas.

As the Jewish boom takes hold, however, such unorthodoxy
is fading. The crucifix incident, for one, will never happen again, at least
not at Temple Beth Sholom. The congregation is building a $10 million complex
in Summerlin South, replete with religious school, two ballrooms, two kitchens,
a ritual bath and a sanctuary that can seat 1,800. Rabbi Harlig, far removed
from the Aladdin, recently opened a $2 million Chabad center on the west
side of town, with substantial funding from Venetian owner Sheldon Adelson.
(The bathrooms, tiled with leftover Venetian marble, are especially spiffy.)
Rabbi Yitzchak Wyne, an Orthodox rabbi from Edmonton, is building a $1.2
million synagogue just east of Summerlin, largely through the charity of
real-estate developer Eskander Ghermaizian. "Everybody needs their billionaire,"
explains Rabbi Wyne. "Harlig has Adelson and I have Ghermaizian."

Rabbi Wyne, 33, is a quiet but blunt talker, a father
of five young sons, and the other major Orthodox presence in Las Vegas. He
wears a dark suit, wire-rimmed glasses, his beard trimmed close. His office,
synagogue and classrooms are currently housed in a double-wide construction
trailer surrounded by chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. An earthmover
sits outside, where the synagogue will soon rise.

He is both an ally and rival of Rabbi Harlig. He calls
their relationship "not warm and not cold." Whereas Rabbi Harlig's ambitions
are broad and emotional--to bring every lost Jew home and inspire all Jews
to perform the Torah's commandments--Rabbi Wyne positions himself as a more
cerebral alternative. "From a political standpoint, Harlig will always be
the right-wing religious zealot and I will always be the moderate," he
says.

Before moving to town five years ago, he phoned Rabbi
Harlig. "He said, 'Don't come, no one's religious, no one's Orthodox,'" Rabbi
Wyne recalls, "and I said, 'I'm here to make them Orthodox.' ... I said,
'There's 70,000 Jews here. You want them and I want them, so we'll carve
up the pie. I'll look at your programs and the ones you're doing, I specifically
will not do."

And so the turf was divvied up, rather amicably. Because
Rabbi Harlig had started a summer camp for children, Rabbi Wyne geared his
programs toward young adults. Rabbi Wyne gladly ceded the kosher-food campaign
("It's a headache," he says) to Rabbi Harlig, who most recently has overseen
the opening of a kosher Chinese restaurant, Shalom Hunan; he also persuaded
several supermarkets to carry kosher food, including meat, which requires
a separate butchering station. And while Rabbi Harlig expanded his outreach,
opening two suburban branches and importing four more Chabad rabbis, Rabbi
Wyne began building a single Orthodox community, family by family. He has
held services in 19 different locations since he arrived, including the health
club of an under-construction apartment complex. "The acoustics on the
racquetball court," he says, "were great."

Rabbi Wyne's synagogue is aligned with the Young Israel
movement--"the McDonald's of Orthodox Judaism," he calls it. He specifically
wanted an English name, not Hebrew, since his main targets are single
professional Jews. His overriding mission is to halt assimilation, which
in Rabbi Wyne's view means halting intermarriage. To that end, he has created
singles programs like "Wyne and Cheese" (is the art of the groaner taught
in rabbinic academies?) and "Speed Dating." In the latter, men and women
pair off for seven "dates" per night, seven minutes each, their quick-fire
conversation helped along by a question sheet that Rabbi Wyne provides. For
example: "How often do you speak with your parents?" or "Did you think Prince
of Egypt was accurate?"

In celebration of Purim, Rabbi Harlig dances with a
member of his congregation; as is the custom, men and women dance
separately.

His efforts, he says, have produced more than 20 Jewish
weddings. But marriage is not enough for Rabbi Wyne. The ultimate success,
he says, is for these young couples "to become Orthodox and take responsibility
for the Jewish people."

Rabbi Wyne, like most of the rabbis in town, never
envisioned himself in Las Vegas. His decision to move here raised eyebrows
back in Edmonton. Now that he's recruiting more young rabbis to join him,
he finds that the stigma is still alive. "They say, 'Oh man, I couldn't bring
my kids to live in that city.' The billboards, the casinos--it just has such
a schmutzy, scummy rap."

So how does he persuade them?

Men from Rabbi Harlig's Chabad center read from the
Megillah, the book of Esther, which contains the Purim story.

"I tell them that Moshe Feinstein, the greatest rabbi
of his generation, lived on the Lower East Side in New York, only six miles
away from Times Square. And I"--he pauses expansively--"am 11 miles from
the Strip."

The surest sign that the Las Vegas Jewish community
has begun to mature?

The bickering.

As the old joke goes: A Jew, stranded for years on
a desert island, is finally rescued. It turns out that he has built two
synagogues. Why two? "That one," he sneers, pointing, "I don't go to."

Synagogue politics can make Washington seem like a
tea party. Rabbi-firings, for instance, are a fact of life. In Las Vegas,
trigger fingers are particularly itchy. Rabbi Mel Hecht, who long ago was
ousted from Ner Tamid, counts 12 rabbis through the door at Temple Beth Sholom
in the 20 years he's lived here. But deposed rabbis are just the start. As
the city's Jewish population has multiplied, so have tensions over turf,
members, ideology and, especially, funding.

The Jewish Federation of Las Vegas raises money for
distribution across the religious spectrum. Last year it took in just $1.3
million, a figure that Rabbi Wyne calls "tragically small." As a result,
synagogues and other Jewish institutions must seek out wealthy individuals
for large donations. There are several reasons why the Federation figure
is so low. For starters, the Las Vegas Jewish community is perhaps the most
assimilated in the country. Also, many recent Jewish arrivals still donate
in their old communities, or don't see themselves as permanent Las Vegans.
But most insiders believe that the Las Vegas Federation is so ineffective
because--well, because it is so ineffective. This theory holds that the bar
was set way too low in the past, when there wasn't as much need for funds.
"People here have been able to buy prominence for what would have been laughed
at in other communities," says Rabbi Hecht.

And so rabbis often find themselves battling each other
for funding, and the allegiance that goes along with it. Last year, the Las
Vegas Sun ran an article about Jewish divorce law. Rabbi Felipe Goodman,
a 32-year-old Mexican who is the leader of Temple Beth Sholom, was quoted
as saying, "The Talmud can be very sexist. It is a very traditional text.
In the times that we live in today, we really need to start changing our
interpretation of it."

Rabbi Harlig, the traditionalist, took extreme umbrage.
"The sanctity of the Talmud, for traditional Judaism, is second only to the
Bible itself," he wrote in a letter to the editor, equating Rabbi Goodman's
"offensive" comments with Salman Rushdie's famed critique of Islam.

Rabbi Goodman, in a letter to his congregants, expressed
his discomfort with Rabbi Harlig's venomous rhetoric. In closing, he made
a plea for his members' souls as well as theirs wallets--since many of them,
from the mayor on down, also support Chabad: "I urge you to give thought
to the important issue of who we are and how we should channel our support,
both moral and financial, to the different religious organizations in our
community, and that of course is only for you to decide."

With such fireworks, it is tempting to keep score between
rabbis, synagogues, denominations. Cooler heads, however, have no patience
for the infighting. "The commonality and the goal here is to engage people,
and use Judaism as a vehicle to become a better person," says Ed Bernstein,
the ubiquitous lawyer and talk-show host who is now running for Senate. "Any
way you can bring people into Judaism is OK with me if they weren't there
before, and if egos are going to get hurt because somebody's going from Orthodox
to Reform to Conservative, or from this temple to that temple, I really don't
care. I don't see this as a struggle internally as to which team is
winning."

Bernstein, 50, takes his Judaism seriously. During
an interview in his office, he interrupts himself to give his new campaign
aide (a non-Jew, imported from Massachusetts) a lengthy and pointed exegesis
of The Jew in the Lotus, a book about Judaism and Buddhism he says he has
read three times. Growing up in Philadelphia, Bernstein wanted to be a rabbi.
He fell away from Judaism but then reconnected in his mid-30s; he has since
served as president of Temple Beth Sholom and is the Nevada chairman of the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Rabbi Harlig got him in the habit
of laying tefillin, a daily ritual in which a Jewish man prays while wearing
on his arm and head two small boxes containing Biblical verses, held in place
with leather straps. "I lay tefillin every day and I meditate every day,"
he says. "Occasionally I meditate with my tefillin on. It's a great experience,
but as you've noticed, I don't have a lot of hair, except in the back. With
tefillin, when you're meditating, during that extra 20 minutes of meditation,
the strap on your head leaves an indentation in my hair that lasts me four
hours--so I've learned to not meditate with my tefillin on."

Toward the end of the interview, in wander Bernstein's
wife, Nancy, and one of their daughters, 5-year-old Eden. Bernstein calls
Nancy a "Jewban"--she's a Cuban-American who converted to Judaism. Nancy
studied for years, she explains, "to the point where I knew more Judaism
than Eddie did."

Eden Bernstein, meanwhile, is being queried on the
origin of her name. Who lived in the Garden of Eden?

"Adam and Eve," she answers.

What did they do wrong?

"They ate from the Tree of Knowledge."

And then what happened?

"They got vanished."

Where?

Eden thinks, hard. "I don't know." She turns to her
father for help. "Where?"

"To Las Vegas!" he laughs, as if it were the most obvious
answer in the world.

It is the day after Purim. Rabbi Harlig is looking
back over his 10 years in Las Vegas. His accomplishments notwithstanding,
it hasn't all been smooth. He admits that the more liberal Jews consider
him "out there" and "brainwashed." The mayor's treatment of him, though half
tongue-in-cheek, was hardly an aberration. "When Federation heard that Chabad
coming to town," he recalls, "it was like the Russians were coming."

He doesn't much care. He sees himself as doing God's
work. Thus are dulled the slings of man. Just now, sitting in his office
at the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Chabad Center, he grins with
satisfaction as he talks about something that happened in his synagogue two
nights ago.

On Purim, it is incumbent upon Jews to gather and hear
every word of the Book of Esther, which tells the Purim story. It is the
most freewheeling Jewish holiday: Haman's name is lustily booed at every
mention; the Jewish victory is cheered; afterward, there is eating and
dancing.

Rabbi Harlig drew a sizable, rambunctious, motley Purim
crowd, typical of Chabad: devout Jews and first-timers, Hasids and hippies,
young parents and widowers. Among them was the author Naomi Ragen, in town
from Israel to speak at a Federation fund-raiser. Ragen had begun the night
at Temple Beth Sholom. When she found, however, that the Purim reading there
was being abbreviated to speed things along, she dashed to the Chabad
synagogue.

This is the kind of story that fuels Rabbi Harlig,
the Brooklyn exile who discovered in Las Vegas a chance to build from scratch
something that neither politics nor fashion can tear down. When asked if
he's had to compromise his Orthodoxy to fit this unorthodox city, he practically
scowls. "There's nothing I would do to bend," he says. "We teach traditional,
authentic Jewish values without any compromise. Because once you tear a few
pages out, the whole book falls apart."

A member of a local Jewish temple will face three
felony charges alleging he tried to rape a fellow temple member, according
to the Clark County District Attorney's Office.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Doug Herndon said Michael
Segelstein , 44, will be arraigned August 22nd on one count each of attempted
sexual assault, battery with intent to commit sexual assault and open and
gross lewdness.

Segelstein and the 46-year-old alleged victim both
attended the Chabad of Las Vegas and
the Temple Beth Sholom in April
2001, Sgt. Russell Shoemaker of Metro's sexual assault unit said.

The incident is alleged to have taken place that month
in the parking lot of the Temple Beth
Sholom.

Segelstein may have been a cantor at the Chabad, Shoemaker
said. A cantor serves as the musical voice of a Jewish congregation. "According
to Rabbi (Menachem) Harlig, no. According to the victim, yes," Shoemaker
said.

Court documents state that the alleged victim told
police that Segelstein accosted her as she was leaving the temple on April
4, 2001. She said he pushed her up against the car and she fell while trying
to escape. Segelstein is alleged to have kissed and groped her against her
wishes, telling her in crude language he wanted to have sex with her.

"Due to her religious beliefs, (the woman) went to
her rabbi, Rabbi Harlig, to report this incident," the court document states.
"(The woman) is an Orthodox Jew. (The woman) says that Orthodox Jews are
encouraged to keep matters pertaining to other Jews within the Jewish community."
The alleged victim told police that Segelstein apologized for his behavior,
but she took the matter to the Chabad's national headquarters in New York.

"Apparently she wasn't satisfied with the resolution,"
because she reported the incident to Metro in April 2002, Shoemaker said.

The alleged victim could not be reached for comment.
Segelstein and his attorney, Jeffrey Shaner, did not immediately return phone
calls. Harlig could not be reached for comment either.

According to court documents, Harlig and Segelstein
declined to speak with police when they were contacted in May, referring
all calls to Shaner. Harlig did eventually speak with police, Shoemaker said.
"Rabbi Harlig, once he understood the nature of our investigation, cooperated
fully," Shoemaker said. "I believe he initially felt we were investigating
something that had already been investigated and resolved by the church."

Segelstein posted $16,000 bail after spending one night
in the Clark County Detention Center, Shoemaker said.

Segelstein is the second religious figure in the Las
Vegas area to have sex-related charges filed against him in recent months.

The Rev. Mark Roberts faces two felony counts and seven
gross misdemeanor counts in connection with allegations made by five young
men who claim they were sexually and physically abused by the Catholic priest
over a five-year period.

Roberts, who has been suspended from St. Peter the
Apostle Church, is scheduled for trial May 19.

Cantor Michael Segelstein is on the Florida and
National Sex Offender Registries.

Segelstein is a Sex Offender under Florida law.
Positive identification cannot be established unless a fingerprint comparison
is made.

If further information is needed, please contact the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Sexual Offender/Predator Unit at
(1-888-357-7332) between the hours of 8am and 6.30pm, Monday through
Friday

Blackstone Civil/Criminal/Probate Court Case
Inquiry

District Case Inquire - Case Summary

http://courtgate.coca.co.clark.nv.us/

Criminal
Case:

Case 02-C-187064-C
Just Ct. Case# 02-F -08938
Status CLOSED

Plaintiff State of Nevada
Attorney Roger, David J.

Defendant Segelstein, Michael
Attorney Shaner, Jeffrey I.

Judge Mosley, Donald M.
Dept. 14

Filed Date 10/01/2002
Closed Date 01/06/2003

Last Hear 01/14/2003
For MINUTE ORDER RE: RELEASE

____________________________________________________________________

Filed Date 10/01/2002 Closed Date 01/06/2003

Last Hear 01/14/2003
For MINUTE ORDER RE: RELEASE

Outcome

Next Hear For

Pre-trial Trial

Disposed Disposition

Consolidated

Filed Date Description Performed

12/02/2005 ORDER HONORABLY DISCHARGING PROBATIONER
12/02/2005

For Segelstein, Michael

Filed By State of Nevada 1 page

01/24/2003 ORDER ADMITTING DEFENDANT TO PROBATION AND
FIXING THE TERMS THEREOF 01/24/2003

Michael Segelstein was originally arraigned on one
count each of attempted sexual assault, battery with intent to commit sexual
assault and open and gross lewdness.

On December 19, 2002, Michael Segelstein pled guilty
to open or gross lewdness, in which he received one year suspended sentence
with conditions and court ordered into counseling. According to court documents,
Segelstein's probation was successfully completed. He has since been
discharged. A civil suit is currently pending.

Considering Michael Segelstein was originally arraigned
on one count each of attempted sexual assault, battery with intent to commit
sexual assault and open and gross lewdness, later plead guilty to the lessor
charge -- and a case is still being heard in Civil Court -- do you think
it's appropriate for Chabad of Southern Nevada to have a photograph of him
on their web page celebrating you fifteenth anniversary?

Are women safe in your shul? Does anyone monitor
Segelstein when he is in your facility, or in the parking lot?

What sort of support has Rabbi Harlig and the congregation
of Chabad of Southern Nevada offered to Segelstein's survivor (especially
after Segelstein entered a guilty plea)?

What sort of education or training does Rabbi Harlig
have in working with survivors of sexual violence and or sex offenders?

NEW YORK (JTA) American Judaism is not a monolith,
and that may have implications in the fight against clergy sexual abuse.

On one hand, the mainstream rabbinic organizations
have established in-house panels to handle cases of suspected sexual misconduct
and other ethics violations by their members. On the other hand, Judaism
is highly decentralized, which means individual congregations are largely
free to decide how to police themselves in this area.

Consequently there is no guarantee that misconduct
cases arising at the synagogue level will find their way to the ethics committees
dockets. Even so, several sources said they were confident that serious cases
would probably be brought to the attention of denominational-level officials,
or the police if necessary.

Whether or not that is actually the case, reactions
varied widely to the notion of congregants deciding a sexual misconduct case
involving their own rabbi.

That uncomfortable prospect was one of several examined
by JTA in this three-month-long investigation of policies that have been
drawn up over the past several years to rein in rogue rabbis and others who
sexually exploit congregants, students or others.

Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the
Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly, said although shul-goers would
probably be too lenient when asked to judge their own rabbi, "they generally
understand what must be done."

Psychotherapist and author Charlotte Rolnick Schwab,
who believes that most aspects of Judaism's internal adjudication system
are dysfunctional, said the prospect of a congregation deciding a rabbi's
professional fate is especially troubling.

"The problem of dealing with rabbi-perpetrators of
sexual abuse is compounded by the fact that individual synagogues have sole
power over hiring and firing their rabbis," Schwab wrote in her 2002 book
"Sex, Lies, and Rabbis: Breaking a Sacred Trust." The book continued: "The
rabbinic organizations can suspend them from membership, can recommend that
they resign. They can also recommend that the synagogues fire them for cause.
It is shocking that many of these synagogues, even in the face of several
women accusing the rabbi, vote to keep him on."

That said, controversies stemming from allegations
of rabbinic abuse are not always clear-cut. They are sometimes complex, shaded
with ambiguities and subject to varying interpretations.

In one case, for example, the board of the largest
Conservative synagogue in western New York, Buffalo's Temple Shaarey Zedek,
voted conditionally in March 1999 to keep its rabbi, A. Charles Shalman,
after several female congregants reported that he had touched them
inappropriately and had made sexually suggestive comments to them, according
to press accounts.

Early the following month, the R.A.'s ethics committee,
which had investigated the case, summarized its findings in a letter to Shalman
that was obtained by the Forward. The letter said in part: "It is painfully
clear that you have violated several principles of rabbinic conduct which
have caused harm to certain of the women counseled or taught by you."

The letter continued: "Normally, given the nature of
the conduct, we would expect you to withdraw from your congregation." But
the committee relented, the letter explained, after learning that the synagogue's
board, in its March 1999 vote, had decided to permit Shalman to keep his
post "under very strictly defined parameters."

The committe, echoing the board's decision, decided
that as a condition of his continued employment at Shaarey Zedek, Shalman
must undergo therapy with an R.A.-approved practitioner and report regularly
to a rabbinical mentor. It also prohibited him from teaching or counseling
women on an individual basis without the permission of the ethics
committee.

On Aug. 19, 1999, four months after the R.A. decision
was handed down, the membership of Temple Shaarey Zedek voted 232 to 87 to
keep Shalman. The text of a motion issued in conjunction with the vote clearing
Shalman to remain on the pulpit said in part, as reported in the media, that
Shalman had been unjustly victimized by "anonymous allegations and subsequent
rumors" after having tried to comfort those "in need of such
assistance."

Contacted in late December by JTA, Meyers of the R.A.
said Shalman had fulfilled all the requirements mandated by the organization's
ethics committee. The case was declared closed in July 2001 and Shalman was
"restored to full rabbinic status in the Rabbinical Assembly," according
to an R.A. document provided by Shalman. When contacted, he declined comment
on his case.

Not just rabbis

Rabbis are not the only religious authority figures
who may be accused of victimizing congregants. Cantors, among others, have
committed sexually abusive acts, as indicated by several cases, high-profile
and otherwise.

In one instance, a woman who was interviewed by JTA,
reported being sexually assaulted by her cantor several years ago in a parking
lot following a communal event. The woman, who asked that neither her name
nor the name of her assailant be used, said she initially did not report
the incident to the police after being advised by an acquaintance "to keep
it quiet, and keep it in the community."

But as word of the incident spread, the woman said
she and her son were soon ostracized by members of the religious community
that had once embraced them. They became the targets of a harassment campaign,
according to the woman, that included pointed intimations that she and her
son might not be Jewish.

"They destroyed my son spiritually," said the woman,
now in her mid-40s, her voice breaking. "They ripped the heart of Jerusalem
from him and I had to watch it."

Eventually the woman's Jewish bona fides and those
of her son were confirmed by an Orthodox beit din, a rabbinic court, sitting
in New York, which also advised her to report the sexual assault to the
police.

"They did everything right," she said of the beit
din.

Felony charges were filed against the cantor, who pleaded
guilty to a misdemeanor count, according to authorities. He was given a one-year
suspended sentence, three years probation and was ordered to undergo domestic
violence counseling.

Although procedures for adjudicating sexual misconduct
complaints against cantors differ from movement to movement, none of these
cases are handled by the denominational rabbinic organizations unless perhaps
the cantor is also an ordained rabbi.

The Orthodox Union, which has approximately 450 member
synagogues in North America, has behavioral standards covering hundreds of
organizational employees, but it has no congregational ethics guidelines
applying specifically to non-rabbinic clergymen, such as cantors.

"It's a big gap; I can't defend it," said Rabbi Mark
Dratch, who chairs the Task Force on Rabbinic Improprieties of the O.U.'s
companion organization, the Rabbinical Council
of America.

Conceding that such a jurisdictional loophole does
exist, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive vice president of the O.U., added
in an e-mail that "the OU does not have jurisdiction over cantors, or over
non-rabbinic members of individual synagogues who may misbehave, but urges
synagogue leadership to educate itself about such matters and bring breaches
of sexual conduct to legal authorities when appropriate, or to appropriate
mental health or social service agencies when necessary."

If not the O.U. or the RCA, it was not immediately
apparent which Orthodox organization would in fact have jurisdiction over
a sexual misconduct complaint involving a cantor. Orthodox cantorial
organizations do exist, but their representatives said they are not equipped
to handle ethics complaints of this type.

As for the other denominations surveyed, the Reform
and Conservative movements have cantorial associations that rule on ethics
complaints against their members.

Over the past five years, five complaints alleging
sexual misconduct have been filed with the Conservative movement's Cantors
Assembly, resulting in the expulsion of three cantors from the organization.
The Reform movement's American Conference of Cantors has received one complaint
of sexual harassment since 2004. That complaint was investigated and found
to be without merit.

The Reconstructionist movement does not yet have a
full-fledged cantorial association and, as a result, most cantors working
in that denomination's synagogues belong to either the Conservative or Reform
cantorial groups, according to a Reconstructionist spokesman.

Justice delayed

Several of the denominational codes have specific deadlines
for promptly dealing with accusations of misconduct, but they apparently
are not always followed. In fact, Rabbi Rosalind Gold, chair of the ethics
committee of the Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis,
identified procedural delays as one of the chief flaws in the system a glitch
in the CCAR mechanism that was evident when JTA first investigated rabbinic
sexual abuse in 1996. The delays can penalize both victims of abuse and rabbis
who are unjustly accused.

In one recent case, a woman maintained that
she had waited six months before receiving word that her complaints against
a rabbi would be investigated, despite what she characterized as a two-week
reporting requirement mandated by the CCAR. The rabbi vigorously denied the
allegations against him.

"Things just take too long," Gold said. "Trying to
get nine rabbis together for a meeting is really hard. I've seen delays hurt
both complainants and rabbis. It puts them through hell."

In the woman's case, the ethics committee following
its routine procedures suspended its investigation after it learned that
there was litigation involving the rabbi and the complainant.

"We don't want our ethics process to be used as evidence
in a court case," Gold explained. "It's not written in the code; it's been
the practice since the code was put into place" in 1991. "It doesn't happen
often, and usually it involves a divorcing couple with a rabbi spouse."

Regardless of the rationale behind the rule, Jeff Anderson,
a Minnesota attorney who has handled hundreds of sex abuse cases against
religious organizations, including at least one Jewish institution, said
it is simply bad policy.

"If to investigate and get to the bottom of it is the
right thing to do at any given point in time, it's the right thing to do
at all points in time," Anderson said. "To suspend it because of a civil
suit makes it the wrong thing. There's no right way to do the wrong
thing."

Still, Gold defended the work of her ethics
committee.

"There is no glory in it and a lot of grief," she said.
"Our committee is really committed to finding rabbis who shouldn't be practicing.
Our process isn't perfect, but there's no old boys network anymore."

But there is a potential downside to the climate of
increased vigilance now emerging in the Jewish world.

"Sometimes, somebody doesn't like the rabbi and makes
something up to get the rabbi fired," said Susan Grossman, a rabbi at Beth
Shalom Congregation, a Conservative synagogue in Columbia, Md.

Grossman cited the instance of a colleague who "wound
up getting hauled in and fired" after innocently applying suntan lotion to
children.

To guard against such episodes, it is important for
denominational decision-makers to be flexible and use common sense, said
Meyers of the Rabbinical Assembly.

"You can't always find that in written ethics guidelines,"
he said, explaining that sexual misconduct "cannot be generalized."

Activities that might disqualify a rabbi for the pulpit
cover an enormous range in terms of severity.

"People keep looking for black-and-white solutions
to these situations," said Meyers, "and that's not how human relations work.
Each situation is different."

Gauging the system

In general, policies on sexual impropriety reflect
the intentions of "people of good character and integrity who seem to take
the issue seriously," Dratch said. "But sometimes even these people can mishandle
cases."

The guidelines, he adds, are "only as good as the people
involved in that particular case, and that's part of the problem. They're
often not aware of the policies or they're not well trained in this
area."

Schwab, the psychotherapist author, said she recently
conducted an informal poll of scores of congregants at Conservative and Reform
synagogues in Palm Beach County, Fla., and found that none of them were aware
of their congregations' policies on sexual misconduct.

Yet even when all parties are well-informed and the
system functions "optimally," it does not always dispense justice, according
to Reform Rabbi Drorah Setel, an anti-abuse scholar and activist. She argued
that when sex abuse victims file complaints against revered communal figures,
they always run the risk of being vilified.

"To name the problem is to create the problem," Setel
explained. "That's the mentality. Anger is directed at the victim rather
than the perpetrator."

The situation might improve, Setel added, if ethics
panels had more lay people or more women, or if victims' advocates played
a more prominent role in the proceedings anything to redirect the therapeutic
focus away from the rabbis themselves. Several denominational policies, for
example, encourage rabbis to seek moral rehabilitation through teshuvah,
or heartfelt repentance.

"The policies are silent on teshuvah for the congregation,"
Setel said. "What happens if the congregation shuns the victim? Does the
congregation have to do teshuvah? There's a whole process of reintegration
into the community that is not even addressed."

Ironically, the role of teshuvah in sexual misconduct
cases was raised recently by prominent Reform Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, who
himself had been found by the CCAR to be in violation of the organization's
guidelines on "sexual ethics and sexual boundaries."

A former CCAR president, Zimmerman was suspended for
two years by the CCAR in 2000. He then resigned as president of the Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, but went on to become executive
vice president of birthright israel and then vice president for Renaissance
and Renewal of United Jewish Communities.

Zimmerman's post-suspension hires drew both criticism
and praise. He no longer works for UJC.

The CCAR did not disclose full details of the case
involving Zimmerman, but several sources interviewed around the time of his
suspension said it is believed he had what was characterized by one publication
as an "extramarital affair" with a congregant 15 years earlier while he was
the rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York.

In 2005, Zimmerman published an article in the CCAR
Journal in which he reflected on his case and on his efforts to rehabilitate
himself with the help of CCAR-mandated teshuvah "mentors." Praising some
aspects of the teshuvah process and criticizing others, Zimmerman wrote that
his family "needed and failed to receive communal and collegial care and
support."

Attempts to reach Zimmerman for comment were
unsuccessful.

Despite these and other criticisms of the still-evolving
mechanism for dealing with clergy sexual misconduct, several sources said
they see evidence that concern over the problem is beginning to pay off.

Attorney Anne Underwood, for one, said she detects
a change in the mind-set of institutional Judaism.

"What I don't hear anymore," said Underwood, who has
helped various faith groups formulate ethics policies, "is What do we do
to legally cover our asses?: What I'm hearing now is, "What do we do to keep
congregations safe and rabbis and cantors healthy?"

On a more practical level, workshops addressing the
issue are becoming more commonplace across the denominations. The O.U., for
example, featured such a session at its recent biennial convention in Jerusalem.
A special beit din has been created in Chicago to adjudicate cases of sexual
abuse.

Meanwhile, denominational leaders are placing greater
emphasis on education and prevention as effective tools in combating the
problem of sexual misconduct among clergymen and other trusted figures. The
Union for Reform Judaism, for example, in its May 2005 leadership briefing
advised board members of its congregations to ensure the safety of congregants
"and reduce your risk of liability" by considering rigorous background checks
of employees.

In addition, several rabbinical school curriculums
now include courses on sexual misconduct and how to steer clear of it. Yeshiva
University is one such school.

"I've seen it work," said psychologist David Pelcovitz,
who teaches at Y.U. "I've had young rabbis in the field call me and tell
me how they've been able to recognize situations they wouldn't have known
how to handle before. I've gotten several calls like that over the last couple
years, and it felt great."

Rabbi Shea Harlig has been doing everything in his
power to support his friend - convicted sex offender, Cantor Michael Segelstein
and discredit a rape surviovr. Segelstein is listed on the National Sex Offender
registry in the state of Florida.

Dear Rep. Berkley,

I was shocked and disappointed to see the video of
Rabbi Harlig praying on the House Floor of Representatives. You know what
he has been involved in during the last 5 years and still he is honored.

A civil lawsuit proceeded with a criminal conviction
and all the victim has gotten is revictimization over and over again the
past 5 years and Harlig has been at the helm driving this horrific experience
even deeper into the depths of hell. Someone allowed a perpetrator to pray
on the House Floor. Victims have been asking to speak on the House Floor
for years.

When is it our turn?

When will we ever get justice within the court systems
in the United States? Justice comes few and far between - like in Segelstein's
conviction but justice must come every time for victims of sexual
assault.

Giving Harlig the opportunity to pray on the House
Floor was an insult to victims. Whoever orchestrated that fiasco should be
ashamed of themselves. I would like to know who invited Harlig to pray and
would also like to know a date when I could come and pray on the House Floor
for victims of sexual assault by clergy. I look forward to your
response.

A Chabad man serves as the hazzan of a Chabad synagogue.
Several years ago, outside another synagogue after a community event, the
Chabad hazzan sexually assaults a woman who is a member of the Chabad synagogue.
He is eventually arrested and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of lewd
conduct. He is sentenced, serves a very brief time, is given probation and
community service.

Meanwhile, the victim civilly sues Chabad, in part
because she claims Chabad sheltered the hazzan. Now Chabad has sought a judgment
against the victim for more than $175,000 in attorneys' fees, and a judge
is about to grant that.

Rabbi Harlig is attempting to sue a rape victim for
attorney fees. This is a rape victim of a convicted sex offender who is on
the national sex offender list.

Immediately after the arrest, Rabbi Harlig falsely
claimed this victim – who worked in the synagogue's kitchen – was
not Jewish. She went to the RCA's beit din. They investigated and found Rabbi
Harlig's claim false. The woman is the daughter of a Jewish holocaust survivor
from Vienna, Austria. The beit din issued her a document verifying her
Jewishness. But, during the time the beit din was investigating Rabbi Harlig's
false claims, this woman's teenage son – a very active synagogue goer
and participant – was forced to sit in the back of the synagogue. He
was banned from receiving aliyot or leading services. And he was shunned
by other members, as was his mother, apparently at the direction of Rabbi
Harlig.

And the man who attempted to rape this woman? He is
a proud member of Chabad to this day, leading services and fully participating
in synagogue life.

A double standard? You bet it is. And that double standard
is sanctioned by and orchestrated by Chabad-Lubavitch.

CALL TO ACTION:
Should
a convicted sex offender who's on
the national sex offender registry be allowed on Purim to be drunk and performing
in front of children? I guess the Chabad of Southern Nevada thinks it's
ok.

Cantor Michael Segelstein
is the one on the right wearing a black suit.

Michael Alan Segelstein is currently on both the Flordia
and National Sex Offender registries.

Chabad, 1261 S. Arville Street, Las Vegas, Nevada

Segelstein was originally arraigned on one count each
of attempted sexual assault, battery with intent to commit sexual assault
and open and gross lewdness. He pled guilty as part of a plea agreement to
open or gross lewdness, received one year suspended sentence with conditions
and court ordered into counseling and was discharged from probation on December
2, 2005.

It appears that Michael Segelstein is an honored member
of Chabad of Southern Nevada. Please contact Rabbi Shea Harlig and let your
voice be heard!

Rabbi Shea Harlig, Director

Email: chabadlv@aol.com

1261 S. Arville Street, Las Vegas, Nevada
89102

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Last Updated: 11/07/2007

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Survivors ARE Heroes!

The Awareness Center believes ALL survivors of sex crimes should be given yellow ribbons to wear proudly.

Survivors of sexual violence (as adults and/or as a child) are just as deserving of a yellow ribbon as the men and women of our armed forces, who have been held captive as hostages or prisoners of war.

Survivors of sexual violence have been forced to learn how to survive, being held captive not by foreigners, but mostly by their own family members, teachers, camp counselors, coaches babysitters, rabbis, cantors or other trusted authority figures.

For these reasons ALL survivors of sexual violence should be seen as heroes!